The Struggle is Real: #TheImperfectBoss Campaign

I am always so inspired by leaders and influencers who are willing to open up and be honest to unite and connect with others via social media. When I discovered Ashley Beaudin and her #TheImperfectBoss campaign, I was blown away by the kindness and sincerity of this movement and the confessions that women in the creative industry were opening up about and I felt inspired to participate. So today, I’m opening up about my own struggles in hopes that someone out there can relate and feel less alone in their struggles. There is power in connection, honesty, and vulnerability. I believe sharing the nitty gritty behind our fears and roadblocks allows creativity to flow, deeper relationships to be formed, and brings the ability to overcome and succeed into light. So, here’s something I personally struggle with, and I hope if anything it helps you feel inspired, empowered, and encouraged to open up and share about your perfectly imperfect life, too. We’re in this together, girl.

I’M NOT GOING TO LIE, before I posted this I panicked for days thinking that people would think I’m being dumb for talking about this or “attention seeking,” so much so that I almost didn’t post. But that’s how it works; that’s my anxiety talking. I never really thought anxiety was real, tbh. I thought everyone dealt with stress and worries, but I never thought I struggled on a different level. That is until I nearly broke down from emotional stress a couple summers ago and saw a counselor who listened to what was going on and diagnosed me with severe anxiety. Once I learned about anxiety, it was like everything I struggled with began to made sense. While I just thought it was shyness and fear, I learned anxiety had a strong grip on me for as long as I could remember.

Anxiety is a little different for everyone, but what it does to me is take me to high levels of obsessive worries and thoughts. It keeps me chained to the fear that I’ll never be able to run my own business one day because I don’t have the skills/time/resources to design and sell my own work. It keeps me up at night, obsessing over all the stupid things I said that day and if so-and-so doesn’t like me because of what I said. Worried about money, marriage, and the future. Anxious about my special needs sister and wanting to help my parents out in any way I can. These are only a few things that I worry about, but sometimes I’m so overwhelmed with thoughts or worries that I can’t eat or sleep. Very few people know that I have struggled with food control because I rarely ever talk about it. There was a period in college where I physically could not get myself to eat, I would get nauseous at the thought of food and skipped meals. While I’ve improved a lot since then, I still struggle with loss of appetite, skipping meals, and eating well. Now that I understand what I’m dealing with, it’s much easier to pinpoint anxious moments and bring myself down from that state. But it’s still hard, and I still struggle daily with it.

I’m thankful for creativity and the ability to express myself and share through art. I’m thankful for friends + family who are patient with me when I freak out or pester them with my worries. I’m thankful for Jesus who says it’s okay to cast all my anxieties on him for he loves and cares for me, because it took a while for me to learn that while friends can be supportive, they cannot carry my weight. Learning that Jesus can has made a huge difference. He is my rock, my resting place. He is stable where I am weak. I literally would not be where I am today if I didn’t come to know Jesus’ love. His love has in a lot of ways set me free.

I can’t thank you enough for your support and for following along on my Instagram and blog. Thanks for supporting my dreams by encouraging me to keep making cool stuff. Thanks for loving me even when I’m a lame friend who worries way too much about what other people think or freaks out about the most random things (which is usually incomparable to the scale of it in my head!). Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hope this resonates with you or speaks some truth to you, friend. If you struggle with anxiety, know you are seriously not alone. I am right there with you, sister. I am livin’ life perfectly imperfect over here and learning to embrace it. I truly hope that with this you learn to share and feel empowered to live perfectly imperfect as well. 💕